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Monday, 19 May 2014

Single male 30-something? You’re the perfect passenger!

A survey of more than 700 international cabin crew members, from 85 countries by Skyscanner has revealed their perfect airline passenger, and it’s a surprising result.

The perfect passenger according to cabin crew is male; he travels alone for pleasure rather than business and he’s in his 30s. And, sorry Beckham but he’s not a celebrity, or at least not one who’d travel premium class as economy passengers top the perfect passenger survey.

For cabin crew operating in UK airspace, it’s English men who are overwhelmingly voted as perfect passenger, with over half the vote. Men from Wales were deemed the least favourite passengers amongst British travellers.

Seen by many as one of the most glamorous and desirable jobs, cabin crew are in the unique position to meet and greet people from all walks of life. However, with nearly 3 million people sitting in the sky every day, some regular habits and requests can understandably get under their skin more than others.

According to the survey, the biggest gripe for a quarter of cabin crew (26%) is passengers who click their fingers at them to get their attention. Other annoying habits at 30,000ft include the scramble to leave the plane before the seat belt signs are switched off (13%), passengers trying to cram too much hand baggage in the overhead lockers (11%) and one in ten say their pet peeve is when passengers talk through the safety demonstration, suggesting that many frequent flyers do not pay attention in spite of increasing requests by cabin staff to do to. Stuffing rubbish in the seat compartments (7%) also completed the list of cabin crew gripes.

Skyscanner’s Sam Poullain said: “This is the first time that we’ve surveyed international cabin crew and the findings give us a real insight into what they really think of passengers. It’s interesting to see that it’s the men who get the vote for the perfect passenger, and while many of us would love to travel business or first class, cabin crew prefer to work in economy.

“It must be frustrating for cabin crew when passengers try and cram as much hand baggage in the overhead locker as humanly possible, however carrying only hand luggage can save passengers quite a lot of money as the cost of putting baggage in the hold can be very expensive.”